If you're comparing Thinkific vs. Teachable, you’re likely building something serious—an education business with a portfolio of scalable digital products around your expertise.
There are a lot of comparisons out there. Teachable and Thinkific are often compared when making this decision, but it’s important to understand the differences so you can decide on the best solution. Which is the best one for your unique needs?
We’ve been building for creators since 2014. Today, more than 150,000 schools rely on Teachable not just because of our tools—but because of what we automate, simplify, and unlock as you grow.
At first glance, both platforms seem similar. But the truth is, Teachable is designed to scale with creators—not just serve them at the start. And in 2025, our latest plan updates make that distinction even clearer.
We’ve been listening to the creator community, and each Teachable feature is built with them in mind. To help you decide on a course platform, we’ve outlined the top considerations for course creators and how we outperform compared to Thinkific.
Let's break it down.
What is the difference between Thinkific and Teachable?
We get compared to Thinkific sometimes. Teachable and Thinkific have been in the online course space for a long time, so we understand. Both platforms support course creation. But the difference lies in what happens on your rode to—and after—your first sale. Teachable is built to help creators scale operations, automate admin, and grow revenue—without paying more for what should be included.We also develop tools and products specifically for online courses. Here are some key differences to be aware of when deciding which platform to use.
Thinkific vs Teachable: Features comparison
What can you do with Teachable?
Teachable’s users have all the features that a creative entrepreneur needs to launch, grow, and manage their online business.
We want to make it easy for all users to build a course and monetize their skills without needing coding or technical knowledge. To help you decide on the best solution for you, we’ve laid out what you can do with Teachable, and what it means for your business. However, you can compare all features and Teachable pricing here.
We’ll go more in-depth on these features:
Online course builder
Teachable has a drag-and-drop course builder so that you can get started building your course content in little to no time. We have three primary design templates tested by creative entrepreneurs for the overall aesthetic, teaching, and learning experience.
Thinkific also has a drag-and-drop approach to building courses and a library of design templates. There are more templates and you can add customization. Some customizations might require coding.
Digital downloads
When you sign up for Teachable, you can create online courses, coaching, and digital products in one place. With one subscription, you can create many different types of products and diversify your income.
Thinkific includes 5 downloads on its Basic plan and unlimited downloads on their Start plan ($99/mo) and above—but downloads aren’t as integrated across the product suite.
Online coaching
Teachable is an educational software that has one of the best online coaching products available. Unlike Thinkific, we have an actual coaching product so you can schedule and monetize one-on-one coaching sessions with your community.
Setting up coaching is similar to setting up courses. You can create coaching-specific sales pages, checkout forms, and thank you confirmations.
A big advantage of coaching through Teachable is that you can use dynamic curriculum blocks. When someone requests a coaching session, they can provide you with information about their coaching needs. You can approve their request, if they are a good fit for your coaching service, or use the intake form to prepare for your coaching session.
Thinkific supports live coaching sessions via Zoom, but lacks a dedicated product for selling coaching with intake forms, approvals, or session management.
Membership sites
If you’re looking to create recurring revenue and deeper engagement, memberships are a must—and Teachable has made them easier and more powerful than ever in 2025.
With Teachable’s Memberships product, you can build multiple pricing tiers, offer exclusive content, and grow community value—all without piecing together third-party tools. Memberships are now available on all paid plans, now included on all paid plans—Starter, Builder, Growth, and Advanced—starting at $29/month billed annually.
Students on Teachable memberships have 43% higher lifetime value than one-time purchasers—because memberships keep them engaged and invested.
Thinkific allows memberships through content bundles and subscription pricing—but only on Start plans ($74/month and up). There’s no dedicated Memberships product or self-service interface for students, and it requires more manual work to segment content, set up bundles, and manage member tiers.
Why do course creators choose Teachable?
Each product on our platform has been created with online creators in mind. We’ll dive into more detail on specific features, but the top reasons why course creators choose us are:
More ways to make more money
It is easier to make more money with Teachable’s payment features.
Teachable Pay can handle all your payment needs. Plus, you can make more money. Teachable provides payment capabilities that make it easy for customers to buy more of your products.
For example, Teachable users can set up different pricing plans for various products and courses. With Teachable Pay, you can generate revenue globally too. You can accept more than 130 currencies for the same product, and reach more people around the world.
Also, you can set up affiliate programs and student referrals to grow your course business through word-of-mouth. Teachable automatically tracks how many referrals your students bring in and coordinates payments with them.
Thinkific launched Thinkific Payments in early 2022, so it is a newer product. It does not have as many advanced options as Teachable Pay.
Thinkific’s TCommerce feature supports selling in the US and Canada, but lacks full multi-currency support and still requires third-party tools for tax compliance outside those regions.
“Teachable made it simple to create and sell a great-looking course that started generating income immediately. What an amazing thing to be making a living doing what I’ve been doing all along – sharing what I know!”
Marc Sabatella, Mastering MuseScore School
Save valuable time on tedious business tasks
Teachable automates tedious tasks that come with running a business. You can spend less time on payroll and taxes and more time building knowledge, creating course content, and connecting with your community.
For example, affiliate programs have a lot of tax requirements and forms. In the US, you would need to collect W-9 or W-8BEN forms from every affiliate and author that earns over $600 a year from your business. Then, you’d be responsible for issuing a 1099 tax form before the end of the year.
But Teachable Pay automates the process for you, saving you time while bringing you peace of mind.
“I came from Udemy 5 years ago, looking to host my own school with my own rules. I did not want my business to depend too much on another company’s policy and needed direct access to my customers.
I wanted to focus on courses and teachable provided a fully-featured solution, saving me months/years of development work. I really love the peace of mind Teachable is providing me: I can focus on my courses and students knowing that they have my back on the technical end. “
Maxime Britto, Purple Giraffe”
Get the most dedicated support for your entire business journey
Teachable’s key focus is to empower everyone to be successful. We do this by providing regular support and guidance.
Thinkific does not provide onboarding or a customer success manager unless you have a top-tier enterprise plan.
“ Teachable U and the Everything is Teachable Podcast has helped me to build out my course and plan my launch strategy with ease. I’ve used other platforms and was very lost which hurt my confidence. With Teachable, I’ve built a program with content that will change the business careers of many Hairstylists.”
Sherrie Marie Walker, Savvy Stylist Society
More value for the money in the long-term
Teachable doesn’t set creative limits on any plan. You can create as many courses and have as many students as you’d like without having to pay more. You also get unlimited video bandwidth, even with a free plan.
In short, Teachable’s pricing doesn’t make you pay more on top of your plan for core features, so it is a better value overall. How do Thinkific’s paid plans compare to Teachable?
Thinkific now has a clearer 4-tier structure, with many key features (like unlimited digital downloads, coaching sessions, and memberships) gated behind the Start or Grow plans.
Thinkific vs Teachable pricing
We build core features into our pricing, so you don’t have any surprise costs.
Thinkific’s pricing structure can be confusing. Even though there are five paid tiers, you could end up paying more, depending on what features and add-ons you need for your business.
For example, to remove Thinkific’s branding from your site, you need the Grow plan ($199/monthly or $149/billed annually). You also need the more expensive plans to get other high-value features like Zapier integrations, cohort classes, webhooks, and APIs. You could end up paying $149 for core features.
Thinkific also recently updated its pricing model. It added a more expensive plan called Expand, which costs $499/month. Thinkific’s enterprise plan is called Plus. The cost is higher than the existing paid tiers. However, it’s a custom pricing solution for businesses that need more features than tiered plans offer.
“Teachable provides me the tools, support, and strength to see my dreams happen. It’s affordable. The entire platform is user-friendly, to say the least. Not only does Teachable boost my income, but it also boosts my confidence.”
Charles Clifford Brooks III, the Working Writer
Can you create a course on Teachable for free?
Yes, Teachable has a free trial. Thinkific also has a free trial, but there are some limits to what you can do without a paid plan. Most course builders restrict how much content, students, and products you can offer per plan.
How do you get paid on Teachable vs Thinkific?
All Teachable plans have the option for instant payout, so you can start getting paid faster. If you use Teachable Pay, payments can be sent daily for businesses in the United States, Canada, India, and over 20 other countries. You can see a full list of countries that can use Teachable Pay here.
When you set up a Teachable school, you can choose from two payment gateways: Teachable Pay or Monthly Payment Gateway. You can also get Stripe Business and PayPal Business accounts and can set up custom payment gateways. These options may differ depending on the country where you are located.
Another advantage is that Teachable’s Stripe integration allows you to receive payouts faster and set your payout schedules to daily, weekly or monthly.
Thinkific has its own Thinkific Payments gateway and similar integrations with Stripe and PayPal but with a few drawbacks. Mainly, if you want to use Thinkific Payments, it’s only available in the United States and Canada.
Which online course platform is best?
So, how to choose a course platform that works for you? Selecting a course platform is like selecting a business partner. It’s important to find the right fit.
There are many reasons why course creators use Teachable. They chose Teachable because of their years of experience helping creators build successful course businesses. We outperform Thinkific when it comes to:
- Support and resources for entrepreneurs
- Teachable Payment capabilities
- Upfront pricing plans
- Easy content hosting
We know how important it is to provide the tools and support to help course creators build, grow, and manage their online businesses. We invest in creator success through regular, live coaching sessions.
Our flexible payment options work for you. With Teachable Pay features, we can handle the logistics of taxes, affiliate marketing payouts, revenue sharing, and student referral programs. You can focus on teaching online classes and connecting with your students, and we’ll help with the rest.
Teachable has all the features that you need to start an online course business, and then some. Thinkific boasts a lot of features, as well. But the question comes down to: Will you use them? Do you want to pay extra for tools that you may never use? Not every creator uses or needs all those features.
You’ve heard a lot from us on why Teachable is the best alternative to Thinkfic, but ultimately the decision is up to you. Think that you’re ready to test drive Teachable?
You can sign up for a free trial and launch your online course business as soon as today.
Thinkific vs Teachable FAQs
Let’s answer some of the most frequently asked questions people have about Thinkific vs Teachable.
Is Teachable better than Thinkific?
When it comes to Teachable and Thinkific comparison, there are many differences. Both online course platforms have their advantages and disadvantages, but Teachable is an online course creation platform that might be better for most online course creators. With Teachable, you can create and sell courses faster and much easier than with Thinkific and Teachable is much more beginner-friendly and accessible than Thinkific.
Why do some think Thinkific is better than Teachable?
Thinkific is an online education platform with many features, and they have a customizable online course platform. Thinkific allows content creators to build more advanced platforms, which is one of the reasons why some prefer to choose it over Teachable.
However, for the majority of online course creators, those advanced customizations are not needed, and might even become an obstacle when building their online courses.
What is the main difference between Teachable and Thinkific?
One of the most important standalone Teachable features is the payment system that Thinkific and other e-learning tools don’t offer. As a content creator, you don’t have to worry about handling payments, processing them and even handling taxes. Teachable does it all for you so you can focus on what matters – course creation.
What are the disadvantages of Thinkific?
The platform reviews are generally positive, but here are the main disadvantages of Thinkific:
- The course-building tools are advanced and might require coding knowledge
- No build-in payment processing and handling tools
- No build-in student referral program
- Focus on enterprise clients rather than individual creators
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